We included studies examining gender-specific or gender-transformative interventions in fragile and conflict-affected states and situations (FCAS) that were published between 2000 and 2021. Our review included studies that use experimental or quasi-experimental study designs and measure women's empowerment or gender equality for peaceful and inclusive societies as outcomes. We included studies targeting all ages and genders in the eligible countries based on the Gender Inequality Index, the Fragile States Index, the World Bank FCAS list, the OECD FCAS list and the Women Peace and Security Index. Within these four categories, we analysed studies focusing on 14 intervention types: allwomen police stations, asset transfers, cash transfers, community dialogues and reconciliations, community-based services, discussion groups, inclusive communitydriven development, institutional provision of loans and savings, quotas, safe spaces, self-help groups and village savings and loan associations, sensitisation campaigns, technical and vocational education and training.We also included qualitative studies, descriptive quantitative studies, process evaluations and project documents linked to the interventions that were evaluated in the included experimental and quasi-experimental studies.
SearchWe searched a broad range of electronic academic databases, internet search engines, websites and collections. We screened titles and abstracts of approximately 100,000 papers, the majority of which were excluded either due to their gender inequality or FCAS index, or because they were not gender-specific or gender-transformative. We screened the full text of 1,330 papers for inclusion. After a final screening by at least two reviewers, we included 136 papers, corresponding to 104 unique studies covering 55 different programmes.
Included studiesThe included studies cover programmes across 29 low-and middle-income countries. This includes 78 studies from Sub-Saharan Africa, 29 from South Asia, four from the Middle East and North Africa, two from East Asia and the Pacific, and two from Latin America and the Caribbean. All included studies were published between 2009 and 2021, with most from peer reviewed journal articles published between 2016 and 2020. Based on reported sample sizes, we estimate that the studies included data from over 290,494 beneficiaries.Among the 30 quasi-experimental design studies, only 3% were appraised as low risk of bias, while 45% were high risk of bias and 52% were appraised as having some risk of bias concerns. Among the 91 included studies using an experimental design, 28% of the studies had low risk of bias and 28% had high risk of bias.
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Intervention-level results
Asset transferAsset transfer interventions yield significant and positive effects on outcomes in two of the three dimensions of the resources-agency-achievement framework. Although asset transfers interventions target outcomes across all three dimensions of women's empowerment, they only produce positive and significant results on access to...